Amelie (ON HOLD)

XIX

  The ball was not so celebratory when I came back. Many women were gossiping about what had happened, trying to speculate what it was those men were discussing. I found it strange how these women were kept completely in the dark, without a single word from any man on things that could impact their own safety.

  Now, I was sitting in my bedroom in my nightdress, trying to clear my mind from the worry lingering in it like an infestation of mice. Every anxious thought scurried around my mind at a million miles per hour and as soon as I think I had gotten rid of them all, one pops back up again.

  A sickness soaked my stomach because of the way Vincenzo so easily dismissed me. It didn't sit right with me. I also didn't like the way those men looked at me when going inside the meeting room. What did I do wrong?

  I was beginning to believe that the Vampire Court was full of problems the human world had already tackled or were at least trying to. It didn't dawn on me that these people had been alive for centuries meaning their beliefs and behaviours could be set back there too. Great.

  A knock on my door caught me attention. "Come in!" I said and watched as the doors opened to reveal Aziel. Thank God.

   "Evening, Amelie." He smiled softly.

   "Evening, Aziel." I smiled back in response.

  He moved into the room further, closing the doors behind him. "I saw you look slightly distressed at the ball tonight, when the meeting commenced."

  I sighed and slumped my shoulders, "Do you know what happened?" I couldn't help but ask.

  Aziel chuckled slightly, "I only know what I've been told."

   "Which is?" I raised a brow.

   "Which is none of your concern." He replied smoothly.

  I sighed one more but this time frustratedly and annoyedly gazed around the room. "Can I ask you something?"

   "Amelie, I don't think –"

   "It's not about the meeting." I interrupted and he stopped. "Well, it kind of is." I then admitted sheepishly and he raised a brow. "Why wasn't the Queen in the meeting?" I had to ask it. I just had to know.

  Aziel sighed sadly, "Her Majesty does not concern herself with any political or foreign affairs." In other words: she isn't involved in any important stuff.

   "But she has the power to, right?"

  Aziel stayed silent. "Right?" I tried to pry even more and he let out a deeper sigh.

   "Amelie, you have to understand that the Court has been alive since the Roman Empire and it's evolution may not align with that of the modern world –"

   "It isn't that the Queen doesn't have any power, women don't have any power, do they, Aziel?"

  He seemed at lost for words before he tried and answered but I couldn't begin to believe it. "Some of these vampires have been alive since the 13th century, Vincenzo himself being born in the 18th. Their lack of contact with the mortal work means that –"

   "All of their beliefs and morals are stuck in the past." I whispered to myself and gazed down at my hands in my lap. Great. Just great.

   "I am sorry, Amelie. I am afraid this is how the Court has been ran for thousands of years."

  I asked Vincenzo for an importance in the Court and he agreed to give it to me. Was he lying? Was he lying just to shut me up? No, we made a deal.